


I Won't Let You Slip Away

by thehaikubandit



Series: Memento Mori (Friendship is Keay) [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: also time to once again call out elias and peter's terrible relationship, many cups of tea, so what the fuck do you do?, some minor blood, sometimes a ghost has hijacked the body of the person you love, thanks leitner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23310001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehaikubandit/pseuds/thehaikubandit
Summary: Martin has to deal with a ghost piloting the person he loves and doesn't deal with it well. Until he realises something important.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Gerard Keay
Series: Memento Mori (Friendship is Keay) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647388
Comments: 20
Kudos: 172





	I Won't Let You Slip Away

It was three weeks after the revelation that Jon was in fact Gerry, and not Jon, that Martin next spoke to him. It was an accident. Between his grief at losing Tim and his worry over the worsening health of his mother, he found himself making two cups of tea out of habit. Hearing Jon’s voice calmly saying, “Statement ends” and finishing up the supplemental material, Martin knocked on the door and entered.

“I’ve made tea...” Martin trailed off as Gerry looked up at him, no glasses on Jon’s tired face and his grey streaks dyed red.

“Thank you?”

“I...” He put the tea on the desk and turned to leave before the tears building up threatened to escape, before he stopped breathing, before… he didn’t know what.

The coughing and spluttering from behind him stopped him in his tracks.

“Oh, fuck!”

Martin turned.

Gerry, not Jon, had spat tea over his desk, the statement, and himself. Martin tried to ignore the part of himself that thought _Good, it wasn’t his tea._

“Too hot?”

“Too sweet!” said Gerry. “Christ, does that man want to have all his teeth replaced?”

“I’ll leave you to make your own tea then,” said Martin, turning once more for the door.

“I’m sorry,” said Gerry.

“It’s just tea.” Martin winced as his voice cracked.

“It isn’t,” said Gerry. “I’m sorry I’m not him.”

That was too much for Martin and he left. He made it to the toilets before he started to sob.

~

They didn’t speak again until after a particularly nasty incident with a Leitner, most likely Flesh aligned. The woman who owned it came in to give a statement. Unfortunately, nobody realised that she’d brought the book with her until the Archives was covered in blood and a collection of viscera no one wanted to look closely at.

When the book was safe in Artefact Storage, and Martin had escorted the crying woman to a cab, he stayed outside for some fresh air. Anything that didn’t stink of blood and meat. He found Gerry smoking and leaning against a wall.

Gerry nodded at him, raising a shaking, bloody hand to his lips, Jon’s lips, as he took a long drag on his cigarette.

“I thought you were worried about his health,” snapped Martin.

There was a long pause.

“Sorry,” Martin started to say at the exact same time Gerry said “What?”

“I – you were worried the tea was too sweet but...” Martin waved a hand at the cigarette.

Gerry laughed. It wasn’t Jon’s laugh, even though it came from Jon’s lips. It was freer somehow, and though it was quieter, felt less restrained.

“That’s, well, that’s a fair point.”

He continued to smoke anyhow.

“In my defence,” said Gerry. “We were just flooded by enough blood to fill a pool and these are Jon’s cigarettes.”

“He didn’t smoke until after Prentiss.”

“What’s a little lung cancer after you get attacked by worms?”

“Something like that.”

They stood in silence until Gerry finished and crushed the cigarette under his boot. Martin still didn’t know what to make of Jon dressed in Gerry’s clothes. 

“Well, time to clean up,” said Gerry. “Unless you want to say fuck it, and come for a drink with me?”

And then Martin couldn’t breathe. Because for all Jon had red hair, no glasses and piercings between his eyes, that was his voice, asking him to go for a drink, but Jon wasn’t there and he’d never ask Martin for a drink and now Jon’s hand was on his shoulder and everything was spinning…

“Hey, okay, Martin, I need you to breathe with me.”

And of course he would, it was Jon, he’d do anything he asked.

“That’s it, that’s it. In. Out. In. Out.”

The spinning slowed.

“Good, Martin, you’re doing well. Just keep breathing.”

His stomach felt warm to hear Jon say those words.

Eventually he became aware enough that he realised what had happened, and how red his face was. He stepped away from the man who wasn’t Jon.

“I’m sorry,” said Gerry. “I just… It’s been a long time since I did anything with anyone, since I had a friend…”

He sighed and went to run his hand through his hair, only stopping when he realised it was still covered in blood. His face twisted with disgust and he dropped his arm back down to his side.

“Look,” continued Gerry. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest? I’ll clean up here.”

He reached awkwardly to pat Martin on the shoulder but stopped himself and turned away. As he walked back into the Institute, Martin heard him mumble the words “God knows I’ve had enough practice cleaning up blood.”

~

The third time they spoke was the next day, and it was intentional. Martin rehearsed the lines in his head on the tube and all the way to the Institute. He listened at Gerry’s door, and when he couldn’t hear a statement being recorded, he knocked.

“Come in?”

Gerry looked tired. It was a familiar look on Jon’s face, even if it was offset by the eyeliner. Martin ignored the swooping feeling in his stomach at the sight of Jon in eyeliner. That wasn’t why he was there. That wasn’t Jon. Come on Martin, focus.

“I, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to come to this poetry reading tonight.”

Gerry blinked at him in surprise.

“I’m sorry?”

“This was stupid, don’t worry about it.”

“No, that sounds… Uh, did you say poetry reading?”

“You said yesterday you haven’t done something with someone in a while, and I go every Thursday and you seem very...” Martin paused. “Creative?”

That made Gerry laugh, the laugh which was so close but also so far from being Jon’s laugh. Martin failed to hide a wince. Gerry stopped laughing.

“You don’t have to invite me to things out of pity. My social life isn’t your responsibility. I know how it feels to… I know that I make you uncomfortable.”

“I...”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Good luck with the poetry.”

Martin felt relieved. He’d tried, that was his job done. Responsibility lifted. _You’re not being fair,_ his thoughts told him.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Gerry.

“Why?” asked Gerry. “This is a fucked-up situation. I get it.”

“Yes but,” Martin stopped and took a deep breath. “This isn’t your fault. And I can’t keep hating you for...”

“Not being Jon?”

“Yeah, that.”

Martin smiled, and it was only a little forced.

“Besides, what’s the use of hoping Jon comes back and wakes up if you, well, if you’re lost?”

“What?”

“You know, to the Lonely. What with Peter being around.”

“Ugh,” said Gerry. “Don’t remind me. I thought I’d seen the last of him after the most recent divorce.”

“The divorce?”

“Yeah. Though that was a while ago. Maybe we’re due another wedding.”

“What?”

Gerry grinned.

“Oh forget poetry. What do you say to an early lunch and the story of Elias’s terrible personal life?”

“Do I want to know?”

“It’s this or try and record some statements, and I feel like actual food. And fuck, Elias deserves to be the centre of gossip for once.”

Martin pulled a face.

“I don’t know, I get the horrible idea he’d enjoy that.”

“Only one way to find out,” said Gerry, and winked at Martin. Martin tried to will his blush away as Gerry threw on his coat.

The cafe that Gerry took him to, was a little way from the Institute and basic, but it was cheap and clean. Gerry ordered a plain omelette with chips and a mug of black tea, grimacing slightly when Martin asked for the full English.

“They do a good breakfast,” said Martin defensively. “I used to come here when I was staying in the Archives. And I’m hungry.”

“No, sorry, I just… Well. Working with this stuff since I was a kid kind of put me off meat.”

“Oh, right.”

“Yeah. Anyway...”

He launched into a detailed explanation of all Peter and Elias’s various marriage and divorce stories. Quiet as he was, Martin couldn’t help but laugh at points.

“And then,” said Gerry. “In front of the whole Institute, still wearing a bloody Santa hat, he just looks Peter up and down and says ‘Peter. You’ve embarrassed me at the annual Institute holiday party for the last time. I want another divorce.’ And that was the last one I got to witness. Who knows if they’ve been married since.”

Martin was now shaking so hard with laughter that he spilt tea on the table.

“That can’t be real.”

“It is, I really wish it wasn’t. And to make it worse, Peter used to date the old Institute head. They reckon that the two of them teamed up to kill him and replace him with Elias. At least that’s what I was told by… by Michael.”

Gerry’s smile vanished and he looked down at his food, appetite suddenly gone. Martin noticed and stopped laughing

“Before he was the...”

“Yeah. When he was...” _like you_. Gerry didn’t finish that part of the sentence. He couldn’t.

“Oh.

They sat for a while, saying nothing. Martin ate and Gerry picked at his chips, trying to ignore that they now tasted like nothing.

“I met you once,” Gerry blurted out, desperately trying to fill the awkward silence that hung between them.

“Oh?” said Martin, his voice high and startled. “What?”

“Years ago, when I was working with Gertrude. I ran into you I think. Literally. Coming round a corner?”

“Oh, yeah… uh…”

“That was you right? Tall, same hair…”

“Mmm. It was.”

Martin was suddenly very interested in his breakfast. Gerry guessed he must have made him uncomfortable but wasn’t sure why.

“Anyway,” said Gerry, trying to undo whatever he’d done wrong. “Thank you. It’s nice to leave the Archives, even if it’s only for a little while. Given I’m sleeping there as well, it gets a bit much sometimes.”

“Oh,” said Martin. “Right. Because Jon moved back into the Archives when he came back from America.”

“Yeah. And it seems rude to go house shopping for him.”

“Mmmm.”

Gerry sipped his tea and focused very hard on not thinking about how he couldn’t sleep. Or that he worried he was going to snap and burn the place down.

“So,” he said, changing the subject. “You’re worried that Peter might get me?”

“He’s… Look, I’m worried he might get a lot of people. I figure if I try and, well, distract him from people who aren’t me, it might help. And we might need him. He’s been… telling me things.”

“What things?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Right. You aren’t worried he’ll 'get' you?”

“He needs me to be stronger.”

“That’s bullshit. He’s using you.”

“I know. I’m not stupid.”

“No,” said Gerry, with a small smile. “You’re not.”

He had been so proud when he’d come back just in time to find Elias gone. That would teach him to underestimate Martin. Hopefully, Peter wouldn’t learn from Elias’s mistake.

“I’ll be alright,” said Gerry. “I’m always fine. But thank you. It’s… not often that anyone cares.”

He didn’t like how Martin looked at him then. It was the look of someone who understood how that felt.

“If,” Gerry swallowed. “If we’re doing this let’s do it properly.”

He raised his mug of tea.

“I solemnly swear,” he said. “To keep you from being lost and fed to that dick who calls himself our boss.”

Martin didn’t say anything, but he raised his own mug and clinked it.

It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> This one's up a little early because why the fuck not? It's this or study. And that season five trailer was ROUGH. So hopefully some sweet fluff or at least Martin not hating Gerry entirely makes things a bit better. 
> 
> Thank you 1,000 times over to Gier and Space for the chatting things through, the editing, and the fucking gorgeous art Gier did. Check it out at friendship-is-keay <3


End file.
